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July 31, 2009

The Games Are Legit

The idea that any team's championship is "tainted" because one or two or seven of the players on the 25-man roster used performance-enhancing drugs is ignorant of history, completely lacking in common sense and has no place in any even semi-intelligent discussion of the issue.

The games were the games. The results and records are final -- and absolutely legitimate. The Red Sox won the 2004 World Series. The Yankees won the 2000 World Series. The Reds won the 1919 World Series.

No player's career totals should be revised or otherwise singled out for special notation.

Two quick examples: Norm Cash admitted that he used corked bats when he won the 1961 American League batting title. Should his stats be erased? Gaylord Perry said he routinely cheated during his pitching career. Should Perry's Hall of Fame plaque be tossed in the trash?

Baseball players are human. Therefore, baseball players will sometimes do unethical or illegal or damaging things to themselves to gain an edge on their opponents. No one should be surprised by this.

And anyone thinking that the game can be "cleaned up", that all the evil doers can be named and shamed and then the sun can once again shine over our great game is a moron. Kind of like the people who think the US was a beacon of democracy and niceness before Bush/Cheney rolled into DC and effed everything up. I hear that and I think you cannot possibly be that stupid.Bronson Arroyo admitted yesterday that he has used both androstenedione and amphetamines -- and would not be surprised if his name was on the infamous 2003 list.

Before 2004, none of us paid any attention to anything we took. Now they don't want us to take anything unless it's approved. But back then, who knows what was in stuff? The FDA wasn't regulating stuff, not unless it was killing people or people were dying from it.

Arroyo began taking andro after 1998 -- and he loved it.

I felt like a monster. I felt like I could jump and hit my head on the basketball rim.

Arroyo said he stopped using andro in 2004 (only because he heard that it could contain some known steroids, such as Winstrol) and quit taking amphetamines in 2006.Meanwhile, the traded deadline ends in a few hours. Keep F5-ing the Globe's Extra Bases.

USAToday's Bob Nightengale says the Red Sox are very close to trading for Cleveland's Victor Martinez.

The Red Sox are pursuing Adrian Gonzalez but San Diego a crazy amount of players, like Buchholz, Masterson, Lowrie and maybe prospects Lars Anderson and Ryan Westmoreland. Boston has also asked about Seattle's Felix Hernandez.

I just had a small heart attack. Fox Sports is reporting that Clay Buchholz and Dan Bard are NOT in the deal for Martinez. I originally had missed the 'not' which caused me to temporarily lose my vision.

Now the talk is LaRoche to the Mets. Wonder what we'd get back from them. Again, an OF makes sense since Martinez would be playing first and catcher. He's not a great catcher, I have heard, but who is on our team at this point?

Hm, who would LaRoche trade for. Angel Pagan? .790 OPS and can play CF. Only 31 games this year and last year, though, so he's been hurt.

Great post, Allan. As the NYTimes article asked today, if everyone was doping, do we really need an asterisk? Every game, every team is tainted. Maybe we should just erase ALL the records and history and start over again. ;)

OK, now a self-interested question: What does the trade for Martinez mean for Tek?

Some people may not be stupid, but may be ignorant and misinformed, or grossly underinformed. That's fine - there's always room for education, for all of us.

But as you have mentioned many times, sportswriters who have been covering the game for 20, 30 years should (and do) know better. Selig knows better. All the old timers calling for HoF walkouts and boycotts, they know better.